Empathy is the new black, and is not a piece that’s about to go out of fashion anytime soon.
We’ve all heard the terms and cliches…
GO TEAM!
TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK!
THERE IS NO ‘I’ IN TEAM!
TOGETHER EVERYONE ACHIEVES MORE!
A TEAM THAT SWEATS TOGETHER STICKS TOGETHER!
I mean that last one is just kind of gross, but if you get past the corny lines after you’ve finished groaning in pain from reading them, you’ll realise that they are all seeded in truth. That it’s all well and good to have a great product/service, a fancy office with flashy lights and a coffee machine made of gold. If you have an unhappy team, you have an unhappy business, and if you have an unhappy business, you can bet the last buck on your cashflow report that your clients are unhappy too.
Love him or hate him, Gary Vaynerchuk is the Entrepreneur we all secretly wish we were, successfully building his GaryVee empire from the wine business to digital marketing and business management who voices his thoughts and opinions unapologetically. Fact is, he is more often on point than not, especially when it comes to his views on team culture.
Check out Gary talk about internal culture, and the impact that truly understanding your staff and creating a positive team culture has on the performance of your business.
With mental health awareness on the rise and the younger generations joining the workforce, business metrics are no longer solely based on outputs, financials and KPIs. Work / life balance is paramount, a feeling of family unity, being heard and supported is driving career success, and heavily influencing where people want to work.
The Businessolver 2019 State of Workplace Empathy Report describes empathy as “the ability to understand and experience the feelings of another” and have found it is now a “fundamental value” in the workplace. Statistics like these generating from employees and CEOs alike, show there is a drastic change in how business fundamentals are being viewed, and while it’s labelled a trend now, the steadiness in which it is growing will see it become a cultural norm in the not to distant future.
Simon Sinek says “The real job of a leader is not about being in charge, it’s about taking care of those in our charge” and it’s this growing approach to leadership that increases retention and engagement.
Businesses are emerging, like Lose Your Mind, which are teaching other companies what empathy truly means and how to adopt it into workplace culture. Founder, Leanne Butterworth believes:
“Feeling heard and understood is a fundamental human need and research has shown that leaders and staff with high levels of empathy have greater staff mental health, improved business performance and better client outcomes.”
The advantage a start up business has, is this is a cultural foundation that can be adopted from day one.
You’ve seen the crazy Cogniom photos and the bond our founding team have, and that comes from learning about each other’s personality traits, strengths and triggers and understanding how they make us tick.
We’ve been able to support each other, teach and learn from each other, be each other’s champion and understand how to respond when one of us is having a bad day.
There is no doubt, that the success we’ve experienced to date is not solely based on our product, but the love, positive culture and unity we present to everyone we meet, creates a safe and understanding space as we join them on their journey.
